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tate-owned oil and gas company Pertamina has agreed to acquire gasoline stations owned by Petronas Niaga Indonesia after the Malaysian company decided last year to shut down its retail business after years of sluggish sales.

Pertamina investment planning and risk management director Afdal Bahaudin told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday that the firm would purchase most of the fuel stations formerly belonging to Petronas, which were mostly located in Java.

“We’ll only purchase the fuel stations in selected locations. Almost all of them are located on Java,” he said.

The executive declined to reveal the details of the transaction value and instead only explained that the price of each gas station would be varied depending on the location of the asset.

Petronas, said Afdal, had been offering its idle assets to many firms, including Pertamina.

All of the fuel stations that would be acquired by Pertamina would become company-owned, company-operated (COCO) stations. Most of Pertamina’s 5,000 fuel stations are operated by private companies under franchising agreements. Pertamina expects the acquisition could be concluded at the end of this year.

Petronas has not responded to text messages and emails from the Post.

Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry downstream director Umi Asngadah confirmed that Pertamina had reported the taking over of at least nine fuel stations formerly belonging to Petronas.

“Pertamina has reported to us that it has purchased nine stations in the first phase,” she said, hinting that Pertamina may have bought all of the gas stations belonging to Petronas.

Petronas, she said, had decided to quit the country’s downstream industry particularly due to fuel sales for transportation, although the foreign company did express interests in playing a role in the country’s fuel-for-industry business.

Last year, Petronas reported to the Indonesian government that it would close down at least 15 of its 19 stations — mostly located in Jakarta with four others located in Medan, North Sumatra and one station located in Bandung, West Java.

Besides downstream, Petronas is also one of the upstream oil and gas contractors in Indonesia with operations at the likes of Kepodang block in Jepara, Central Java and Ketapang in Madura, East Java.

Petronas Niaga Indonesia was the Malaysian firm’s local subsidiary for the country’s downstream sector, becoming Pertamina’s competitor in the marketing and distribution of petroleum products. Other competitors include PT Shell Indonesia, the local subsidiary of global oil and gas giant Royal Dutch Shell, which has 57 fuel stations in the country, and France-based Total Oil Indonesia, which owns 13 stations.

The four firms compete in the nonsubsidized fuel market, with products such as 92-octane gasoline, which currently sells at Rp 9,800 (93 US cents) a liter. Nonsubsidized fuel accounts for only about 15 percent of the country’s total fuel market.

Petronas, Shell and several local companies are allowed to take part in a tender for the distribution of the subsidized fuel. But Pertamina still dominates the distribution of the subsidized fuels because of the tight requirements imposed by downstream oil and gas regulator BPH Migas on other companies in order to be able to distribute subsidized fuels.